Boozing mice get the blues when they dry out

时间：2019-03-01 10:02:00166网络整理admin

Mice that drink get the blues and lose brain cells when they go dry. Clyde Hodge of the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill and his colleagues found that mice who voluntarily drank moderate amounts of alcohol exhibited depression-like behaviour when the alcohol was withdrawn. The team also noticed a drop in the number of brain cells in the hippocampus – a region linked to memory and mood. “The number of new neurons fell by 40 per cent, and that’s a lot,” says Hodge. The abstaining mice became “blue” around 2 weeks after their final drink,